Book Launch!
Participating in the Wrong Way?
Four Experiments by Sophie Hope
Published by Cultural Democracy Editions (London) 2011
Saturday 8 October, 12-5pm
Spike Island 133 Cumberland Road, Bristol BS1 6UX, UK
In ‘Participating in the Wrong Way? Four Experiments by Sophie Hope’, Hope documents and reflects on the projects she carried out from 2006-2010 as part of her doctoral research into cultural democracy and the commissioning of art to effect social change. The four Logbooks explore the complexities of socially engaged art and how participating in the ‘wrong’ way might throw light on the parameters of commissioned art.
‘Het Reservaat’ (Logbook #1) was an experiment in time travel with residents in a Dutch new town. During ‘Critical Friends’ (Logbook #2) a group of participants of public and collaborative art became the critical evaluators of the commissioning process that aimed to engage them. The ‘Performative Interviews’ (Logbook #3) delve deeper into the compromise, censorship and cancellations experienced during commissioned art projects. The final experiment in the series, the ‘FUNding FACTORY’ (Logbook #4) illustrates the culmination of these projects through a collective experience on the cultural production line.